43. { Atlanna Lynn : 1 }

Joining the academy was an obvious choice for her given her skills in combat and talent in music and art. Growing up in the Lynn ducal house as the sole heir, she received the best education to raise and blossom her talents.

Although she was known to be a bit of a rowdy and troublemaker growing up, she learned to become soft-spoken and well-versed as she was taught the importance of being the 'sole' heir. Or at least she was trying to learn.

Neither the long lectures about the geography and whatnot about the ducal region nor the aristocratic music interested her. She wanted to live in the world with all her being: find friends she could share her precious moments with, fall in love madly without thinking, laugh out loud on funny occasions and even cry without holding back during trying times.

But such was not a life the future duchess could live. Stigmatized by all her at-home instructors as talented but lazy, she was forced to pick up after herself wanting to not upset her parents. Although it wasn't decided when she would take over the title, it was soon to come.

From her perspective, joining the academy was the only choice for her. Unless the world turned upside down and a war started, this was the only chance for her to make real friends and memories.

Within the first few hours of the day, she was able to meet so many of her age. While she was curious and jealous of the freedom enjoyed by the commoners she wasn't able to talk to any.

She felt helpless. While other nobles approached her on their own accord, the commoners kept their distance. It was only then she realised: in all ten years of her life, she never had approached the other person first.

'Umm, how do I talk to them?'

She wanted to run and ask her handmaiden immediately but was forced to put on a confident facade as she got surrounded by others.

As the circle of upper nobility slowly encircled her, the topic of the Wyte prince soon started amid other gossip.

Unlike the Lynn ducal house, which was sworn to protect and fight for the Equirron royalty, the Wyte house stood as equals with the Equirron royalty. While they didn't govern the kingdom, they had the right to succeed the throne.

As the eldest and the prodigal daughter of the Wyte house, Emilia Wyte, grew up uninterested in the matters of the throne, the nobles slowly started to jump ship one after the other. While the second princess, Maeve also had the right to succeed, she was too young. It was expected that the Equirrion king would pass the throne sooner than later to ensure the continual ownership of power within the house.

While most were aware of this, a sudden announcement reached every nook and corner of the kingdom: the return of the Wyte prince.

While many wanted to question the authenticity of the announcement, they had to swallow it as they found the announcement to have come directly from the ducal house.

Be it the inaugural ceremony or in the classroom, none were able to find him.

When she first saw the short but cute boy who looked to be a year younger than them standing in the arena without a weapon, she put everything in the back of her mind and focused on him.

While it was surprising to find out about his true identity, she still couldn't get around how he was able to win against his opponents. The complex and restrictive mannerisms that she was forced to learn and practice, looked so easy and natural when he did it.

Dugen dugen. She could feel her heart beating loudly. For the first time in a long while, she felt curiosity surging in her.

'I want to know more about him. I want to talk to him. But how?'

After agonising over this thought until she was the only one left to participate in the spar, she finally came to a quick and simple conclusion.

Walking to the centre of the arena, Atlanna smiled playfully, "have you recovered enough for one more spar, Prince Noah?"

====

Although a lot of time has passed since his last match, his health didn't recover. In fact, it decreased. As Noah still suffered from mana backlash, his health kept decreasing unless he slept or ate. Forget sparring, he just wanted to comfortably lay flat in his small dorm room.

As Noah succeeded in creating the mana regulation script, the Survive quest was updated soon afterwards. The time remaining changed from 1 year 10 months to 3 years. He was now able to handle the mana influx much better. Although this was something worth celebrating, the backlash from mana backlash remained more or less the same.

Surprisingly there was one more change in his status window. In the section where his stat points were written, now another stat: Vitality appeared.

He was already aware that some of the stats in the status window appeared after a certain event trigger took place, but he didn't expect the vitality stat to appear. This was a stat he wasn't able to unlock in his playthrough after all.

As so many things happened one after the other, he dismissed Aditi's blessing as it was: an ability that allowed him to perceive the world the way he did as an alpha tester. He didn't expect the blessing to mimic it so closely.

The ability to write an automation script on himself and the appearance of the vitality stat was an eye-opener.

'I need to learn more about what I can do with the blessing. Wait, can I unlock other stat parameters as well?'

Following his thought, Noah tried using Distort on himself to unlock the other stats through code only to fail soon after.

'I guess the mana cost is too high.'

Only when he checked his current mana capacity did Noah see the number next to the vitality stat.

'Two. Just two?'

The vitality stat essentially explained the capability of the user to recover. If one had low vitality, it was harder to recover after an injury. Even the number of potions consumed had to be increased for the same type of injury.

This was also one of the ways EtherWorld nerfed necromancy users. Although necromancy was one of the strongest classes, which was capable of raising the undead that felt no fear or pain, the user was forced to gradually evolve into a lich, which was one of the strongest undead creatures.

While the user could raise a larger army as a lich, it had a huge drawback: their vitality hit the bottom of the rank presiding it. If it was just that, users could have overcome it by simply grinding, but it didn't end there. The vitality stat was locked once it reached the minimum of the previous rank. They couldn't increase it even if they wanted to. Either they had to level up and promote a rank or use rare healing potions that usually had weak efficacy as well.

While it still looked as OP as before, the difference between other classes grew as the rank increased.

'It was one of the reasons why I didn't want to try and carry on the legacy of Sung J*nwoo during the early testing.'

To Noah's knowledge, all classes had some kind of shackle that prevented them from becoming overpowered.

Even noncombatant classes weren't left alone. One of the strongest healing classes: Asclepius's Apprentice, had their vitality stat as a cost for healing. This op class had the power to recover a person from one Health Point to the maximum. But what good was it if the person had to exchange their precious vitality stat in order to do it?

The only way around it was to manage and get classes, subclasses, talents and skills that complement well with each other.

'But ignoring all that, even the lowest, G- rank noncombatant child would have better vitality than me!'

As soon as Noah realised this, he put all his free stat points into vitality stat since then.

[Name: Noah

Level: 24

Class: None

Title: None

Grade: F-

State: Weakened from Mana overload backlash. Mana poisoning state: Health -1 every 5 minutes. Mana +1 every 5 minutes. Mana capacity +1 every 5 minutes while mana capacity is reached. Level -1 every 5 days. The host doesn't have the strength to maintain contracts at all times. Spirit contracts will be released automatically if health drops below 1000.

Affinity:

Fire: 12% Water: 5%

Wind: 7% Ice: 7%

Psychic: 3% Divinity: 1%

Health: 3,480/10,000 Mana: 7,400/15,200

Strength:41 Stamina: 45

Agility:36 Intelligence: 75

Dexterity:30 Charm: 50

Luck: 22 Vitality: 19

Stat Points: 0

=Skills=

|— Goddess Aditi's Blessing

| |— Console Window

| |— Inspect

| |— Distort

| |— Mini Map

| |— Heads Up Display

| |— Playback

| |— Automation Script

| |———expend_mana.script

|— Ice Temple Self Defence Sword Style (F Rank)

| |— Block

| |— Divert

| |— Parry

| |— Slash

| |— Thrust

|— Skadi Ice Spirit

| |— {0}

|— Basic Ice Elemental Series

| |— Ice Cube

| |— Ice Touch

| |— Frost Breath

| |— Powder Snow

| |— Ice Pebble

| |— Cold Body Temperature Regulation

| |— Ice Shell

| |— Ice Crystal

| |— Cold Blast

| |— Ice Film

| |— Snow Ball

| |— Frost Bite

| |— Snowflake

|— Intermediate Ice Elemental Series

| |— Hail

| |— Freeze

| |— Ice Armour

| |— Ice Spear

| |— Icy Wind

| |— Ice Ball

| |— Snow Storm

| |— Ice Blades

| |— Ice Sculpture

| |— Ice Floor

| |— Ice Wall

| |— Ice Arrow

| |— Ice Sword

| |— Cryo Bomb

| |— Ice Prison

|— Ice Temple Self Defence Spear Style (F Rank)

| |— Block

| |— Divert

| |— Parry

| |— Slash

| |— Thrust

|— Ice Temple Self Defence Bow Style (F Rank)

| |— Consecutive shot

| |— Accuracy Lock

| |— Close Range Shot

| |— Arrow Creation

| |— Volley Shot

|— Azeas fire Spirit

| |— {0}

|— Surtr fire Spirit

| |— {0}

|— Noble Etiquette (B Rank)

| |— Graceful Gait

| |— Graceful Speech

]

Although the pendant protected him from physical injuries, the pain he felt was excruciating. Noah was sure that if he took off his shirt, his torso would be coloured dark at the places where Nox and the others hit him. The sore pain coming from his body was enough to slow his movements.

'I have to finish this fast.'

===

A/N:

Hey guys,

If you guys have any confusion/queries regarding the skills in the skill tree let me know in the comments. I will be gradually explaining each of the skills in future chapters as and when Noah uses them.

Level, Rank and stat breakdown:

+———+—————+

| Rank | Min. level / |

| | Min. stat |

| | for rank |

| | promotion |

+———+—————+

| G- | 10 |

+———+—————+

| G | 15 |

+———+—————+

| G+ | 20 |

+———+—————+

| F- | 30 |

+———+—————+

| F | 40 |

+———+—————+

| F+ | 50 |

+———+—————+

| E- | 70 |

+———+—————+

| E | 90 |

+———+—————+

| E+ | 110 |

+———+—————+

| D- | 150 |

+———+—————+

| D | 190 |

+———+—————+

| D+ | 230 |

+———+—————+

| C- | 310 |

+———+—————+

| C | 390 |

+———+—————+

|C+ | 470 |

+———+—————+

| B- | 630 |

+———+—————+

| … | … |

+———+—————+

| A+ | 1910 |

+———+—————+

| S- | 2550 |

+———+—————+

F —> Avg. strength of year 1 students at Enid

E- —> Avg. strength of a 16-year-old regular adult in EtherWorld.

S- —> Current strongest individual in EtherWorld

/* For rank promotion, the user has to gain the minimum level and minimum stat points for at least 2 stats. Users will demote rank if they can't maintain the minimum level for the rank. */

I noticed that I had put an incorrect rank in some of the status windows of the previous chapters. I will be updating that now.

Also, bear 🐻 with me for some more time on the release schedule.

As usual, please send power stones to help support this novel.

Happy reading,

Kamui